German car manufacturer Daimler has reported a steep rise in its quarterly profits, boosted by record sales of Mercedes-Benz cars.
The company’s net profit for the first quarter of the year increased by 20 per cent to €1.42 billion, with revenue rising nine per cent to €27 billion.
Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz cars division achieved a new record for unit sales in the first quarter, with total sales rising by nine per cent to 338,300 units, compared with 310,700 for the same period a year earlier. First-quarter revenue increased by eight per cent, to €14.9 billion.
Commenting on the results, Daimler’s chairman Dr. Dieter Zetsche said: “We have started the year with a strong first quarter. Despite higher investment in future growth and a challenging market environment, we succeeded in surpassing the very good prior-year results in terms of unit sales, revenue, EBIT and net profit. We are on schedule to meet our targets for this year as well as our medium-term targets.”
However, sales of Mercedes-Benz vans did not fare as well, with unit sales decreasing during the three-month period to 51,200 vehicles, primarily due to market weakness in Western Europe.
Daimler said it expects its total unit sales for the year 2012 to be higher than the 2.1 million vehicles sold in the year 2011.
